By Thai Newsroom Reporters
THE PEOPLE ARE ROUGHLY equally divided over whether massive street protests against the “untouchable” de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict at large Thaksin Shinawatra could possibly occur at any time, according to the latest NIDA Poll.
The NIDA Poll, recently conducted among a total of 1,310 people from all walks of life in all regions of the country, has found 41.60% of the respondents say the possible anti-Thaksin protests will almost certainly not escalate and be prolonged to a politically critical extent as those in the last couple of decades.
That compared to 41.30% of the respondents who say the possible anti-Thaksin protests in the capital and elsewhere will almost certainly occur, albeit not as critically as in the past or pivotal to the current Pheu Thai-led government’s survival.
Meanwhile, the poll has found 11.15% of the respondents say possible uprisings of anti-Thaksin demonstrators will almost certainly become so politically critical as the previous events which culminated in the ouster of the former prime minister in the 2006 coup and that of his sister/former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra in the 2014 coup.
The Students’ & People’s Network for Democracy had earlier mustered a handful of elderly demonstrators in protest of the “untouchable” Thaksin outside Government House and then planned to repeat it on Feb.2 though such street protests had been merely viewed as a token reaction.
The billionaire, politically powerful de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict has literally never spent a single day behind bars at Bangkok Remand Prison since he returned from 17 years of self-exile abroad last August whilst the authorities including, executive officials of the Corrections Department directly in charge of handling his case have been alleged of applying double standards and using legal loopholes to keep him from jail and grant him privileges unprovided for other convicts whilst being reportedly admitted at Police Hospital for secrecy-shrouded “illnesses” for over four and a half months now.
He had been convicted in absentia by court of misconduct perpetrated in office during his previous rule nearly a couple of decades earlier and sentenced to an eight-year jail term which was curtailed by royal pardon to one year with the likelihood of being released on parole by the latter part of next month.
CAPTIONS:
Top: De facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra next to a sign showing the 14th floor of the Police Hospital where he has been staying since his return to Thailand in August last year. Top photo: Thai Rath
Front Page: File photo of Thaksin Shinawatra. Credit: Thai Rath
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